No science = no growth in the 21st century

I get that the federal government needs to cut its budget. We can’t spend more than we take in forever.

But I also want the country to have a bright future, and without investments in science and technology that’s just not possible. The real key to solving our present economic difficulties is to grow our economy.

The buckyball has grown up.

If you’re looking for a local example, look no further than the science of nanotechnology, which in some respects was launched at Rice University with the 1985 discovery of the buckyball by Richard Smalley, Bob Curl and Harry Kroto.

That very basic science discovery — of a molecule made of 60 carbon atoms — stimulated some early basic research interest in the field of nanoscience. Some promising results led to U.S. government investment beginning in 2001 under the National Nanotechnology Initiative. These funds stimulated more research.

The cumulative investment in this nanotechnology initiative since fiscal year 2001, including the 2012 request, now totals almost $18 billion.

23 Responses

What is important to remember is that the discovery of buckyballs came about while the researchers were trying to understand what happens in interstellar space. This wasn’t research directed at starting up a new field; it was research aimed at trying to understand something that most people would claim has no practical relevance.

All of science is like that. Looking at one phenomenon, we often discover things that have enormous impact on other disciplines. The best investment that America can make in its future is pure research. It is the breeding ground for new ideas and new technologies that will continue ot make America the best country in the world.

Yes, that’s an excellent point, John. Harry Kroto came to Rice (through Bob Curl) to investigate the nature of long chains of carbon atoms that astronomers had observed between stars. Were the carbon chains, he wondered, blown into space from stars similar to the sun when, as part of their life-cycle, they had expanded and then violently collapsed before dying? Curl and Smalley believed they could approximate the conditions of dying stars, which are rich in carbon, by using lasers to blast a chunk of graphite.

“Princeton researchers have found a simple and economical way to nearly triple the efficiency of organic solar cells, the cheap and flexible plastic devices that many scientists believe could be the future of solar power.”

“The researchers, led by electrical engineer Stephen Chou, were able to increase the efficiency of the solar cells 175 percent by using a nanostructured “sandwich” of metal and plastic that collects and traps light.”

The whole “junk science” attack on good science by lobbyists and politicians protecting industry has taken a toll on the public’s view of science. Creationists, Anti-Vaccine groups and their like haven’t helped either.

Typically, companies fund directed research; that is, research that is aimed at turning an idea into a profit as quickly as possible.

There’s nothing wrong with that (indeed, it must happen in order for discoveries such as buckyballs to become products such as bullet-proof vests and beauty cream), but those researchers are focused so tightly that they don’t have the time or energy to make fundamental discoveries. (The best known example of a commercial group making a fundamental discovery actually happened by accident.)

In order to generate the basic ideas that feed into directed research, you need blue-sky research. And that means government involvement, either directly via grants or indirectly via tax breaks for companies that do blue-sky research (e.g., the old Xerox PARC that was transmogrified by changes to the tax codes from blue-sky to directed research).

As long as the gov’t is willing to fund it, why should the private sector? The reality is that when the gov’t does stop it, the private sector WILL pick up the slack. At least the portion of the private sector than has any vision at all. But it will take time. And the private sector is much less susceptible to the whims of political correctness.

Weren’t things such as transistors developed by the private sector? Energy distribution, light bulbs, nylon, plastics, computer innovations, software languages etc. The government does contribute significantly no doubt, but saying there would be no growth without it is a bit dishonest in my opinion. The government also wastes huge amounts of research dollars? Who cares what the effects of alcohol are on Chinese prostitutes?

I recently finished reading The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation by Jon Gertner. It’s amazing how much of everything we have now came out of that place. Transistors, IC’s, cell phones, fiber optics, communication satellites, whole new branches of science and engineering (e,g. information theory),new materials, etc.

And before someone chimes in with “but that was private enterprise!” let me remind everyone that Bell enjoyed a government sanctioned monopoly that poured billions into what was then the largest corporation in the world and the largest employer.

The payoffs from basic undirected research are both unpredictable and incalculable. At Bell the best minds in the country worked at whatever they were interested in, and the result was the world we live in today.

I would to see us spend more on research. We spend more on defense than the next 20 countries combined, nine times as much as the Chinese, 15 times as much as the Russians, yet even as we hurtle over the financial cliff no one will entertain cutting defense by even a single percent.

If America wants to continue to lead the world we need to spend our money on basic research and development of new technologies and sciences. Otherwise we’re doomed. The largest army on the planet can’t save us from economic and industrial irrelevancy.

And much more than a proportional share of the spending cuts for the fiscal cliff were to come out of defense spending. That would, of course, have a significant negative effect on DARPA and other programs that, you guessed it, fund research.

For informations sake, look at federal spending on research in 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2012. Look at the steep increases. There isn’t a problem with federal research spending, there’s a problem with terminology and fiscal discipline. Remember that according to that practice, a program that spent 2 billion last year, and wants to spend 2.75 billion next year, but is only allocated 2.25 billion, suffers a 1/2 billion cut, not a 1/4 billion increase.

I was so happy to see a reference to Bell Labs here. I hired on with Southwestern Bell Telephone in 1970 and spent my first fourteen years with them when it was the old Bell System. Bell Labs was part of that and we were so proud to belong to the same organization. Bell Labs was, in my opinion, the jewel in the Bell System’s crown. It funded all kinds of pure research and employed the finest scientific and engineering minds in the world because something someone was working just may have a telecommunications application far in the future. Unfortunately, the Bell System was one other thing where the government had to shove a stick in the spokes.

The government should continue to legislate ever increasing amounts of ethanol fuels stocks, and fund corn based ethanol to the tune of $5.7 billion / yr. Its “science” after all to subsidize corn growers, ethanol distillers, water down the fuel supply, consume massive amounts of water, drive up food prices, and increase fuel costs….Its a green energy winner.

I don’t know, but $5.7 billion a year (and growing) could fund a lot of “science.” I think that was equivalent to about 2/3 the NASA budget.